1963 Plymouth Savoy and 2013 Dodge Challenger - Still Gone

How great was it to be a high school kid near Detroit in the early ’60s? For Ralph Ronzello, who lived just six miles from the legendary Detroit Dragway, it was a time where he and his friends saw their heroes up close, at the track. “It was a great time to grow up in the car world,” he remembers. “Everyone had their Mickey Mantle (or Al Kaline-Ed.), but for me, it was Roger Lindamood and the ‘Color Me GONE’ car.”

Needing a repaint, Roger had his white Savoy wiped clean of watercolor, and then the “Color Me GONE” name (in an iconic logo) went on, with a distinctive blue-and-white color scheme.

The creation of Roger Lindamood—who worked in Chrysler’s transmission lab by day -- “Color Me GONE” (CMG) was, at first, a plain white ’63 Plymouth Savoy two-door sedan, which Ma Mopar’s crew at Lynch Road Assembly fitted with its latest factory drag-racing package, built around the 426 inch “Stage II Golden Commando” version of the RB big-block. With a factory rating of 425 horsepower (and Dick Brantsner’s tuning expertise), that Savoy could easily punch a 12-second hole in the air.

Here’s something that you might not have known. “Color Me GONE” actually got its name when the Lindamood kids painted on the side of it, in watercolor paint, “I am a Plymouth—Color Me GONE!” which was inspired by a popular song of the time.

Over Labor Day Weekend in 1963, Roger squared off with the Ramchargers at the NHRA’s U.S. Nationals, only to lose in the Super Stock final to the candy-striped Dodge.

That Plymouth was the first in a long line of “Color Me GONE” Mopars, which ranged from the steel-bodied ’63 Savoy to the steel and aluminum ’64 Dodge 330, to an altered-wheelbase ’65 Coronet, then to a succession of Funny Cars starting with the first Charger-bodied one in 1966. Two dozen Mopars wore that name and colors, and Roger drove them into the record books, and into legend.

Fast forward to the ’90s, and the 1964 version of “Color Me GONE,” complete with its all-aluminum front sheetmetal, was restored by Ralph and Lynn Ronzello in 1991, with help from the Lindamoods, and later joined the collection at the Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The Lindamoods and Ronzellos were then looking for a car to race in the Nostalgia racing scene, but they didn’t want to build another ’64 Dodge that could be confused with their original CMG ’64.

3/7<strong>The Group:</strong> The ’63 and the ’13 “Color Me GONE” Mopars were joined at Carlisle by the restored ’64 CMG. Roger drove to the Top Stock Eliminator win at Indy that year over the Ramchargers.

So, the group located an original ’63 Plymouth Max Wedge car at an event in Denver. It showed less than a thousand original miles on its odometer, a distance driven a quarter-mile at a time. Still on it were the original radio and heater/defroster block-off plates, as well as the vulcanized heater vacuum lines that controlled the air cone vent, special emergency brake brackets, and the battery mount inside the trunk. Plus, the Savoy still had its original fender tag and broadcast sheet, which documented it as an original Max Wedge car.

The ’63 first went to Arlen Vanke’s shop, where he applied his “old racer’s magic” to the chassis. Next, JP Race Cars installed the roll cage and finished up the rear suspension. For power, the original Stage II 426 Wedge was rebuilt by Hensley Racing, before Scott Tiemann of Super Car Specialties re-created the original CMG logos and color scheme.

Lynn Ronzello drove it at nostalgia drag races and other events, running in the high 10’s on the quarter-mile. Eventually, the original engine was removed, and replaced by the Wedge that’s in there now.

Some time later, the ’63 was parked while Randy Lindamood (Roger’s son) built two more “Color Me GONE” cars, both of them ’65 Dodge Coronets. He also had an idea to build a modern-day CMG, based on the modern Dodge Challenger, but that was placed on hold -- until Randy found an incomplete Challenger Drag Pak car.

Without its original engine, the new Challenger body he found was perfect for what he had in mind -- a modern-day car with a second-generation (based on the 426) Race Hemi, the same engine that Roger had raced from 1964-onward, under its hood. After more than a few phone calls between Randy and Ralph, the idea hatched to match-race this new car against the restored ’63.

Once again, Hensley Race Engines was called on, and they -- with help from Indy Cylinder Head, among others -- prepped a Wedge stout enough to help the Savoy run with the Hemi-powered Challenger.

We caught up with the two “Color Me GONE” cars, along with the ’64 ride, when they were displayed at last year’s Carlisle All-Chrysler Nationals. “We thought it would be a fun thing to have the ’63 Plymouth, which is the first “Color Me GONE” car, do some match races at some Mopar nostalgic events against a car built fifty years later,” says Ralph, noting that the Challenger was finished only days before Carlisle.

If you get the chance to see the “Color Me GONE” cars during their “50th Anniversary Tour” -- which will take them to select Mopar-related shows and events, by all means do so…but remember this when you go see them on the track: Just like back in the old days, your ticket will buy you a whole seat in the grandstand, but you’ll only need the edge of it!